Climatologists are often asked, "Is climate change making hurricanes stronger?" but they can't give a definitive answer because the global hurricane record only goes back to the dawn of the satellite era. But now, an intersection ...

NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite passed over the Southern Indian Ocean and captured a visible image of Tropical Cyclone Cebille. Cebille is hurricane-strength and looks like a pinwheel with a small eye surrounded by powerful ...

NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP passed over newly formed Tropical Storm Ava and analyzed the storm in infrared light. Ava, the third tropical cyclone of the Southern Indian Ocean season formed off the coast of northeastern Madagascar ...

The first tropical depression of the northwestern Pacific Ocean 2018 tropical cyclone season didn't waste any time forming after the first of the new year. Tropical Depression 1W formed just west of the Philippines in the ...

Adam Rainear '16 MA is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Communication in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences with an undergraduate degree in meteorology who served as a research assistant in the Office of the ...

NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement mission or GPM Core Observatory satellite passed over western India on December 5, 2017 at (12:21 a.m. EST) 0521 UTC and found that the remnants of former Tropical Cyclone Ockhi has ...

Tropical Cyclone Ockhi is quickly weakening in the Arabian Sea and is expected to dissipate on Dec. 6 when it makes landfall in northwestern India. The Global Precipitation Measurement mission or GPM core satellite passed ...

When NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Tropical Storm Ockhi, it measured cloud top temperatures that showed strongest storms were off the coast of southwestern India. Infrared data showed Ockhi intensifing into a typhoon.

Shortly after Tropical Cyclone Ockhi formed in the Northern Indian Ocean to the west of Sri Lanka, NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite passed over the storm and saw powerful bands of thunderstorms wrapping into its center from ...

A rare type of storm struck Greece last week, killing at least 20 people and reportedly damaging 1,000 homes with flash floods and mudslides. Photos of the storm, named Numa, showed clouds swirling around a central eye. It's ...

Tropical cyclone

A tropical cyclone is a storm system characterized by a large low-pressure center and numerous thunderstorms that produce strong winds and heavy rain. Tropical cyclones feed on heat released when moist air rises, resulting in condensation of water vapor contained in the moist air. They are fueled by a different heat mechanism than other cyclonic windstorms such as nor'easters, European windstorms, and polar lows, leading to their classification as "warm core" storm systems. Tropical cyclones originate in the doldrums near the equator, about 10° away from it.

The term "tropical" refers to both the geographic origin of these systems, which form almost exclusively in tropical regions of the globe, and their formation in maritime tropical air masses. The term "cyclone" refers to such storms' cyclonic nature, with counterclockwise rotation in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise rotation in the Southern Hemisphere. Depending on its location and strength, a tropical cyclone is referred to by names such as hurricane, typhoon, tropical storm, cyclonic storm, tropical depression, and simply cyclone.

While tropical cyclones can produce extremely powerful winds and torrential rain, they are also able to produce high waves and damaging storm surge as well as spawning tornadoes. They develop over large bodies of warm water, and lose their strength if they move over land. This is why coastal regions can receive significant damage from a tropical cyclone, while inland regions are relatively safe from receiving strong winds. Heavy rains, however, can produce significant flooding inland, and storm surges can produce extensive coastal flooding up to 40 kilometres (25 mi) from the coastline. Although their effects on human populations can be devastating, tropical cyclones can also relieve drought conditions. They also carry heat and energy away from the tropics and transport it toward temperate latitudes, which makes them an important part of the global atmospheric circulation mechanism. As a result, tropical cyclones help to maintain equilibrium in the Earth's troposphere, and to maintain a relatively stable and warm temperature worldwide.

Many tropical cyclones develop when the atmospheric conditions around a weak disturbance in the atmosphere are favorable. The background environment is modulated by climatological cycles and patterns such as the Madden-Julian oscillation, El Niño-Southern Oscillation, and the Atlantic Multi-Decadal Mode. Others form when other types of cyclones acquire tropical characteristics. Tropical systems are then moved by steering winds in the troposphere; if the conditions remain favorable, the tropical disturbance intensifies, and can even develop an eye. On the other end of the spectrum, if the conditions around the system deteriorate or the tropical cyclone makes landfall, the system weakens and eventually dissipates. It is not possible to artificially induce the dissipation of these systems with current technology.